FSFE Newsletter - August 2012

Helping the European Parliament to release its own Free Software

For the first time, the European Parliament (EP) is about to release one of
its own programs as a Free Software. The program in question is called AT4AM,
short for "Automatic Tool for Amendments". The Parliament is making laws, and
AT4AM automates a lot of the formalities associated with the legislative
process.

Karsten Gerloff and Carlo Piana were invited to give talks at the event to
discuss the right license under which to publish AT4AM, and to explain the
political dimension of Free Software.

Do you want to know why the FSFE suggested the EP to license their software under
GNU AGPL version 3, and what else our president has on his wishlist for the EP?
Then read his
report!

Protect Free Software licenses from bankruptcy

When the companies or authors that license Free Software enter bankruptcy,
there is a risk that granted Free Software licenses will face legal challenges
in some jurisdictions. The FSFE is trying to prevent this situation in Germany. We started talking about this during a meeting with the German Minister of Justice, who we could have meet thanks to receiving the
Theodor Heuss Medal. Now the ifrOSS supported by the FSFE
suggests the German Ministry of Justice to include a specific Free Software clause
in the German Insolvency Code. The clause ensures that Free Software
licenses would not be negatively affected by a bankruptcy of a licensing rights
holder. It makes it clear that any offer to grant a Free Software license made
before the licensor's bankruptcy can be accepted by anyone even after the
bankruptcy proceedings started.

If Free Software face similar problems in your jurisdiction, please contact us or take similar steps.

The Fellowship: One to rule them all

In the Lord of the Rings, Gollum does not want to share the ring. He is such
an egoist. But Barbara "swimmi" Roth and Martin "gollo" Gollowitzer, both
Fellows of the FSFE are used to share (as well as use, study, and improve).

How, exactly, can you have a successful project with collaborators? Can
we quantitatively analyse past projects to figure out what works, instead of
just using our best guesses? David A.
Wheeler reviewed a book which analyses how to be successful
with Free Software.

You want to have a small low cost Free Software PC? Take a look at this
overview and decide what is best for you.

What is going on in Norway, and what is the role of Free Software
competence centres? Paul Boddie takes a look at the Norwegian
government's recent withdrawal of all financial support for the Norwegian
Free Software Competence Center.

Get Active: Help us with Android installation parties!

Torsten Grote, who started our Free
Your Android campaign, wrote down what he is missing
in CyanogenMod 9. In good Free Software fashion he created feature
requests for a configurable power control widget, an ssh daemon, direct in-app
shortcuts, or native OpenVPN support in CyanogenMod’s issue tracker.

We want to help as many people as possible to regain control of their
Android devices and their data in general. One important step in this process
is helping people to install Free Software on their phones and tablets. So on Software
Freedom Day (15th September) the FSFE wants to have public Free Your Android
installation parties.

If you can organise such a workshop, please let us know! If you still
need help on how to do so, we will try to help you having a successful event.
E.g. on August 26th we will have a workshop in Berlin for people who plan to
give such workshops in the future, be it at Software Freedom Day, at a
conference or another occaison.